The View From Here
by Malluchan
Summary: They are not lost; only misplaced. They are not unwanted; only forgotten. One world acts as a bermuda triangle for another. The fabric between dimensions has at this time been ruptured...You may jump, but I can only catch you if you trust me...the view from here can be very deceiving...
1. Chapter 1

It was one of the rare quiet moments in the lair; such moments, Leo had found, were to be treasured.

Space Heroes sounded quietly on the worn television set, casting a soft glow across the floor beneath him. Little *clinks* and *sproings* came from the direction of the lab, and the sweet breathing of two sleeping brothers hailed quietly from the couch behind him.

But silence, like rules, is meant to be broken.

All of a sudden a newsflash pushed its way to the front of the screen, the reporter saying urgently: WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM TO BRING YOU THIS IMPORTANT NEWSFLASH. Leo found such newsflashes quite vexing.

With the loud blare awoke the two brothers; yells of "Don't fall asleep on me ever again" filled the silence. Though he supposed it could no longer be called silence.

He returned his attention to the newsflash which New York, by some inexplicable reasoning, deemed to be more important than Space Heroes. He intended to either do something about the crime at hand or yell at the TV for not recognizing what was important, according to the situation.

His choice: Option B. The report emphasized only that the lost and founds were overflowing and that children were getting lost. Lost children were nothing new to the city and people did not need to keep losing their stuff and children; this Leo clarified in his lecture of the TV.

When he finally finished, red in the face and gasping for breath, Michelangelo stood behind him with a still-rolling camera. Afterwards followed the inevitable chase around the lair and breaking of lamps.

Yes, the silence was undoubtedly dead for now.

* * *

Leo trudged through the drizzle unenthusiastically. Michelangelo had left his nunchuk in an alley and after an unexpected ambush of "NOT-IT"s, Leo had been nominated to retrieve it. A thorough examination of the alleged location proved it devoid of any nunchuk whatsoever. And then it had started raining.

Leo kicked at every puddle he came across, sulkily punishing nature for its cruel battering of his happiness. And now he was missing the Space Heroes marathon.

He was halfway home when he bumped into a child, about 6 or 7 years old. Streaks of mud ran through her ragged blond hair, and her clothes hung off of her like empty sacks, perhaps nice once but now as good as garbage.

"Hey", he said, not feeling it. "Where are your parents?"

"I'm lost", she answered. "My name's Kayla." Tears, almost indistinguishable in the loathsome drizzle, overflowed from her eyes and ran down her cheeks, leaving clean paths through the grime on her skin. Where they fell, Leo could have sworn the sidewalk got pockmarks in it.

"Do you know where you live? I can take you home", he offered. He was already as wet as he would ever get, anyway.

Kayla took his hand and led him across Manhattan. As they progressed, she never seemed to tire. Curiously, her outline flickered in the wind like a dying flame, or static pushing its way through the radio signals. Through the path they took, Manhattan sported a gradient of rich houses-their starting point-and rundown buildings, gradually more and more grubby and surrounded by barrels of fire and homeless folk.

She stopped, just when Leo thought it couldn't get any worse.

"This is where I live."

Leo turned and gasped.

Before him stood a sidewalk lined with blackened ridges of concrete or wood, rising knee-high out of the charred ground like ridges of a skeleton, a ghost of what once was. Memories of the fire that had ripped through this part of town filled Leo's head in horrifyingly rapid succession.

All of the buildings had been burnt to the ground. Hospitals and homeless shelters had filled up. It was on the news for days, news anchors begging people to donate blood to the survivors and money to families. After all the cost the accident had already demanded, the street was never rebuilt.

He turned to Kayla and found her vanished. Not a trace remained, save the ragged teddy bear lying on the ground like some charred corpse, stuffing blooming where one eye should be and most of its leg missing. Chills ran up and down Leo's spine; where her hand had come in contact with his, now a burning cold took up residence. He buried the bear, the action somehow seeming proper at the time, and got home as quickly as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

Days passed, almost a week before the burning cold on Leo's palm disappeared completely.

But something strange was going on.

At night he could hear some type of song. It could only be described as a sort of musical wail. It kept him awake and haunted his dreams; it sent unheard of things creeping into his nightmares, spiraling in and out of reality. Sometimes he couldn't be sure if he was dreaming or awake. It was terrifying.

One night he left the lair in an act of desperation, hoping the air would clear his head and lend him some sleep, and if not, at least it could wake him up and end the torture of never-ending exhaustion. It was then that he ran into his next nightmare.

Soft whimpers came from an alley, a mix between the clash of steel against stone and a dog in pain. He crept into the entrance, wondering what sight awaited him where darkness loomed like monsters in a closet. This was New York's nightmare trap.

A crying child was crouched near the entrance.

He looked up, and his eyes widened.

"Please don't hurt me-I'm..." He trailed off, and Leo followed his gaze. Down to his palm, where Kyla had clutched his hand. Where it had burned afterward for all those days. He realized it was giving off an unearthly glow, in a color that was never before seen anywhere. A new primary color. He could only describe it as the color of forgiveness, one that made his head feel enclosed in an iron wall.

"You're the guardian", the child whispered in awe. His voice rose with excitement as he continued to speak. "The guardian of the children! I'm so lucky you found me tonight, sir! Thank you-Mr...uh, Mr..."

"Leo", he finished, his voice trembling slightly. He was completely certain he had gone pale.

"Will you take me home, please, Mr.-Honorable-Guardian-Leo?"

"I don't know, I..."

"Sir?" the kid added hastily. Desperately.

Leo sighed inwardly. "Ok. Come on." But no matter what it came down to, he was not going to touch the kid. At all. He didn't want to risk another burn.

Ths kid reached for his hand and Leo jerked it away. "Sorry, kid. I don't do hand-holding."

"My name's Jeffrey."

"OK, Jeffrey...Jeff?...Let's get this over with. Where do you live?"

"At Byooka street, in between corner-of 994th-and-Dispik and BOOT-hag."

"There aren't any streets here with those names", said Leo, utterly bewildered.

"Come on. I'll show you."

Jeffrey took off at an amiable pace. Leo followed, wondering why kids who claimed to be lost could lead you straight to where they lived. Or claimed to live.

Jeffrey stopped. In a desperate effort to not flatten him, Leo fell on his face.

He lay there for a few seconds, contemplating the mess he had gotten himself into and whether he would ever get himself out. It had all started with Mikey leaving out his idiot nunchuk.

He lay there until Jeffrey poked him in the side, like a red-hot iron being jabbed into him at full speed. He yelped and jumped into the air. He resisted the urge to scream at Jeffrey and rip his little head off. It wasn't his fault.

"This is where I live", said Jeffrey proudly. Leo surveyed his surroundings, bracing himself for a filed of charred and blackened foundations.

Instead he found himself in a field of grass, or what used to be grass. A vacant lot between two abandoned buildings, covered in charred yellow stubble where they had burned the grass to help it grow. A pile of rocks sat in the back of it.

He whirled. Shimmering blue flames were covering Jeffrey. And then he was gone.

In his place were two footsteps in the grass. More like two patches of brilliant green grass, shaped like footprints. Leo shivered and raced back home at the risk that he might meet another lost child who would poke him with an iron, set his hand on fire, or leave him to bury the guts of a dead teddy bear.

* * *

It was around a month later that things started to get really scary.

Leo had brought home children of increasing numbers and been subject to many sleepless nights and strange sightings, including a bone left on the ground in the place of a child, glowing eyes with lightning reflected in them, and screams hurtling through his dreams.

He slumped around the house in a rest-deprived daze before falling into bed at night and staring numbly at the same spot on the wall, for so long that it was starting to get worn down.

One night he heard a child crying above his room. He decided that he was fed up with this and left the child to be found by somebody else.

But the wailing escalated into screams of rage. Chunks of cement rained down from the ceiling. Leo raced to the ladder and climbed up.

Where the kid stood, the pavement was being worn down as if by acid. Light flickered around him and then all the electricity in Manhattan and Brooklyn was eliminated. The 3 other boroughs followed not long after.

Without thinking, Leo grabbed the kid by the shoulders and shook him, ignoring the searing pain running up his arms.

"HEY! WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA!?"

"YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE GUARDIAN! WHERE WERE YOU!?"

Leo clamped a hand over the kid's mouth.

"Listen", he growled through teeth gritted against rage and pain both. "I am going to let you go but you had better be quiet. Then I am going to take you home. Now stop crying."

The kid was silent.

Leo grumpily snatched his hand off of the child's mouth and marched after him down the street.

After bringing him to a collapsed mall and watching him turn into a gravestone, Leo fell to the ground in exhaustion. His whole body burned from the pain of shaking the kid back and forth. His brothers finally found him at 2:00 that morning, passed out and apparently badly burned. He woke up an hour later with a pledge to never leave the lair again dominant in his mind.


End file.
